The secret world of disinformation for hire - podcast

Last year, coordinated by the French media organisation Forbidden Stories, a group of journalists from around the world, including from the Guardian, embarked on a project: to get inside the murky world of disinformation and expose those who profit from it.

Among the reporters were Gur Megiddo, an Israeli investigative journalist for the business newspaper TheMarker. With him was Omer Benjakob, a reporter with the Israeli daily paper Haaretz, and Frédéric Métézeau, a journalist with Radio France. As part of an undercover investigation, they held meetings with a secretive team of Israeli contractors selling “black op” influence campaigns to those with the means to pay for them.

As the Guardian’s Stephanie Kirchgaessner tells Michael Safi, the contractors claim to have manipulated more than 30 elections around the world using hacking, sabotage and automated disinformation on social media.

Through painstaking work, the team of reporters were able to get inside meetings with the group and piece together the identity of its secretive leader, a man who goes by the name of Jorge.

Photograph: Haaretz/The Marker/Radio France

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